Time is running out to hire transportation operator

Published: Sunday, November 24, 2013 at 06:00 PM.

PANAMA CITY — The county has less than two weeks to hire a public transportation operator if it wants to keep paratransit service running smoothly, transportation officials say.

The Bay County Commission voted this month to take over the paratransit system, Bay Area Transportation, on an emergency basis, acting as its community transportation coordinator (CTC).

The firm currently managing the paratransit service announced in October that it would quit at the end of the year. The service has no fixed route and primarily ferries the elderly to medical appointments, in blue and white buses. The County Commission has not decided if it will oversee the service long-term, but will manage it for six months, through the end of June.

Time is of the essence. Though the county doesn’t officially take the service over until year’s end, it needs an operator in place soon, to get comfortable in the system and to meet Medicaid requirements.

As CTC, the county needs to sign a Medicaid contract, which requires recipients receive 30-day notice prior to a change in service provider. This ensures recipients know what numbers to call to continue using the service.

The county would receive Medicaid funding for managing the service.

Letters informing Medicaid recipients of the service change should go out by Dec. 4 to meet the requirement, said Steve Holmes, executive director of Florida Commission for the Transportation Disadvantaged.

PANAMA CITY — The county has less than two weeks to hire a public transportation operator if it wants to keep paratransit service running smoothly, transportation officials say.

The Bay County Commission voted this month to take over the paratransit system, Bay Area Transportation, on an emergency basis, acting as its community transportation coordinator (CTC).

The firm currently managing the paratransit service announced in October that it would quit at the end of the year. The service has no fixed route and primarily ferries the elderly to medical appointments, in blue and white buses.
The County Commission has not decided if it will oversee the service long-term, but will manage it for six months, through the end of June.

Time is of the essence. Though the county doesn’t officially take the service over until year’s end, it needs an operator in place soon, to get comfortable in the system and to meet Medicaid requirements.

As CTC, the county needs to sign a Medicaid contract, which requires recipients receive 30-day notice prior to a change in service provider. This ensures recipients know what numbers to call to continue using the service.

The county would receive Medicaid funding for managing the service.

Letters informing Medicaid recipients of the service change should go out by Dec. 4 to meet the requirement, said Steve Holmes, executive director of Florida Commission for the Transportation Disadvantaged.

The County Commission’s next regularly scheduled meeting is Dec. 3, so it would need to approve an operator at the meeting or hold a special meeting.

“It would be very wise for them to take a very experienced provider, who has not only provided transportation in a coordinated system in Florida, but also Medicaid,” Holmes said.

The transition is so quick that the county needs to pick a firm that knows the ropes because a lot of paperwork will be flowing back and forth — including Medicaid beneficiary numbers and schedules, Holmes said.

“There’s a lot to do in a short period of time,” he said.

Three firms

The county has three firms to consider: JTrans, Pensacola Bay and Veolia Transportation. All provide paratransit service in Florida and serve as the CTC in other counties — JTrans in Jackson, Pensacola Bay in Escambia and Santa Rosa, and Veolia in DeSoto, Hardee, Highlands and Okeechobee.

The wrinkle, though, is that all three applied for the CTC role — which Bay County now holds — not simply to operate the service. It’s unclear if any would want the operator role.

Along with Bay County, the companies submitted their qualifications to the Florida Commission for the Transportation Disadvantaged for the job. The deadline to submit was Nov. 13.

The normal process to find an operator can take up to six months, but because time is short, the county decided to use these three companies to find a suitable operator.

This month, the county also took on the role of financial conduit for the local trolley service, receiving its state and federal grant money. The employee hired to oversee that money also is helping find the paratransit system operator.

County transit financial manager Angela Bradley said the goal is for the County Commission to make a decision on the operator at its Dec. 3 meeting to properly execute the transition. She said the firms didn’t submit dollar-amount bids for the work because there’s a set amount of money the operator would receive. She was unsure what that amount is.

“We need a qualified operator in place that has been involved and run a paratransit system previously and has Florida Medicaid qualifications,” Bradley said.